I had cherished a hope that his victims would find an opportunity to
escape while filling our water-barrels, but Wolf Larsen had selected his
spot well. The _Ghost_ lay half-a-mile beyond the surf-line of a lonely
beach. Here debauched a deep gorge, with precipitous, volcanic walls
which no man could scale. And here, under his direct supervision--for he
went ashore himself--Leach and Johnson filled the small casks and rolled
them down to the beach. They had no chance to make a break for liberty
in one of the boats.

Harrison and Kelly, however, made such an attempt. They composed one of
the boats' crews, and their task was to ply between the schooner and the
shore, carrying a single cask each trip. Just before dinner, starting
for the beach with an empty barrel, they altered their course and bore
away to the left to round the promontory which jutted into the sea
between them and liberty. Beyond its foaming base lay the pretty
villages of the Japanese colonists and smiling valleys which penetrated
deep into the interior. Once in the fastnesses they promised, and the
two men could defy Wolf Larsen.

I had observed Henderson and Smoke loitering about the deck all morning,
and I now learned why they were there. Procuring their rifles, they
opened fire in a leisurely manner, upon the deserters. It was a
cold-blooded exhibition of marksmanship. At first their bullets zipped
harmlessly along the surface of the water on either side the boat; but,
as the men continued to pull lustily, they struck closer and closer.

"Now, watch me take Kelly's right oar," Smoke said, drawing a more
careful aim.

I was looking through the glasses, and I saw the oar-blade shatter as he
shot. Henderson duplicated it, selecting Harrison's right oar. The boat
slewed around. The two remaining oars were quickly broken. The men
tried to row with the splinters, and had them shot out of their hands.
Kelly ripped up a bottom board and began paddling, but dropped it with a
cry of pain as its splinters drove into his hands. Then they gave up,
letting the boat drift till a second boat, sent from the shore by Wolf
Larsen, took them in tow and brought them aboard.

Late that afternoon we hove up anchor and got away. Nothing was before
us but the three or four months' hunting on the sealing grounds. The
outlook was black indeed, and I went about my work with a heavy heart.
An almost funereal gloom seemed to have descended upon the _Ghost_.